AS always the YFC month has been a very busy one for all of the newly elected committees and county office, writes county co-ordinator Tory Lugsden.

Our last AGM took place at The Crown in Framlingham with Debenham YFC and, as always, it was very entertaining. The club said goodbye to its outgoing chairman Tom Freeman and welcomed “Tricky” Tom Walne into his role of club chairman. Congratulations to Tom and we look forward to another good year for Debenham YFC.

We had an excellent trip to the Amazone factory in Doncaster courtesy of AtlasFram and 14 members made the short journey on a Friday morning. We were treated to an excellent tour of the Active Centre and a look at the machinery made including fertiliser spreaders, sprayers and cultivation equipment. The event also included a few competitions for the members to take part in including “guess the fertiliser”, “price up the machinery” and “replace the tines on a powerharrow”. Bury’s Tim Rix was the worthy winner in the guess the fertiliser competition with a massive 3 out of 10, Bury’s Josh Gilbert took the prize in the “pricing” game and John Dickson showed us all how it was done on the changing of the tines despite the girls giving them a little competition just in case. We had a fantastic time and huge thanks to Atlas Fram for organising such a great tour. The A1 on the way home was more of a challenge but a slight detour (of three hours) via deepest, darkest Lincolnshire including a 36p toll bridge and a delay in a box junction in the centre of Lincoln with a man wearing a Tiger onesie and Father Christmas hat all added to what was a truly entertaining day.

The Annual Junior Ball was another fantastic evening with great entertainment from my favourite disco Sponge who even managed to get the juniors doing a very old school “Oops Upside Your Head”. The Senior helpers were in charge of the catering with County Chairman John Dickson heading up the BBQ and managed, once again, to avoid any Junior event fire hazards. The other senior helpers were in charge of the washing up, preparing platters of food and generally running the kitchen Gordon Ramsey style but with better language (apart from when the smarties went missing). The bar was busy serving alcohol free cocktails which were very popular with our junior members especially the fluorescent pink one which seemed to have more of an effect on the bar staff sending Tom into full over-excited mode particularly with the helium balloons much to the junior members amusement.

Debenham YFC held their annual ball this weekend which was a great event. The members had put a lot of effort into organising the event and all those present seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. Well done to all those involved in putting on a very good evening.

As most people might hopefully have seen the Suffolk YFC herd of cows made their bid for freedom and to promote the clubs around Suffolk. Hopefully all the girls should have been rounded up again but we were delighted that most clubs had visits from new members. It all goes a long way to spread the YFC word and get more people involved in our great organisation.

Coming up we have the County Lazerquest competition, public speaking and Member of the Year competitions as well as all of the Christmas parties and celebrations. Work is starting in earnest on the plans for the YFC Country Fair taking place at Easton Farm Park on Sunday 21st April 2013 and then we will be into the New Year.

I will finish this month’s column by wishing all Young Farmers, farmers and supporters of the federation a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a fantastic New Year. We hope everyone has a peaceful time and that this never ending rain stops and lets all those involved in farming or the agricultural industry get on with the jobs that need to be done!